Harry J. Cargas
| birth_place = Detroit, Michigan | death_date = August | death_place = St. Louis, Missouri | buried = Kirkwood, Missouri | nationality = American | religion = Catholic | residence = St. Louis, Missouri | parents = James Cargas, Sophie Cargas | spouse = Millie Cargas | children = Martin, Joachim, Siena, Manon, Jacinta and Sarita | occupation = Professor, writer, scholar | profession = | previous_post = | education = PhD | alma_mater = University of Michigan, Saint Louis University | motto = | signature = | signature_alt = | coat_of_arms = | coat_of_arms_alt = }} Harry James Cargas (June 18, 1932 - August 18, 1998) was an American academic and prose author. Life Overview Cargas is best known for his writing and research on the Holocaust, Jewish-Catholic relations, and American literature. He was a professor at Webster University for nearly 3 decades. His circle of friends and collaborators included American novelist Kurt Vonnegut and Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Youth and education Cargas was the son of James and Sophie Cargas of Hamtramck, Michigan."Harry Cargas in the 1940 Census" (2012). Ancestry.com. Retrieved September 22, 2012. His father was a Greek immigrant and his mother was of Polish descent, and they raised their son in a working-class area near Detroit. As a young man, Cargas struggled to find a career. He quit university education 4 times before earning his earliest degree, and he spent several years working odd jobs in factories, bars, restaurants, and trucking in both Michigan and Indiana. He also spent time in the copper mines of Montana and as an athletic director for a boys' school in New York and wrestling coach in New Jersey before finding his calling as a scholar.Bartrop, P.R. and Steven Leonard Jacobs (2011). "Harry James Cargas." Fifty Key Thinkers on the Holocaust and Genocide. New York: Routledge. Retrieved September 22, 2012. Cargas served in the Korean War and was a decorated combat veteran. After the war, however, he became a lifelong pacifist. His philosophy of nonviolence was influenced by the writings of Catholic mystic Thomas Merton, and Cargas published the introduction to the Japanese edition of Merton's autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain in The Queen's Work magazine while he was its editor.Thomas Merton Center (n.d.). "Merton's Correspondence with: Cargas, Harry James." Merton.org. Retrieved September 22, 2012. Cargas committed himself fully to academic life in 1963.Huttenbach, Henry R. (1999). "In memoriam: Harry James Cargas." Journal of Genocide Research, 1(3), 311. DOI:10.1080/14623529908413962 Retrieved September 22, 2012. He earned a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in literature from Saint Louis University. Career In 1970, Cargas joined the faculty of Webster University, where he taught until his death in 1998. He was the chair of the English department there and also taught courses in the history, art, and religion departments.Winslow, Vicki (2012). "Family Honors Harry Cargas with Scholarship Fund." Webster Today. Retrieved September 22, 2012. Some of his course topics included the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, protest literature, Latin American literature, prison literature, and Native American literature. A lifelong proponent of good sportsmanship, Cargas also served as the athletic director for the university between 1988–1989."Dr. Harry James Cargas" (2010). Webster University Athletics Hall of Fame. Retrieved September 22, 2012. Cargas was a prolific writer, who authored 32 books and more than 2,500 articles. He was also a frequent public speaker who lectured worldwide, as well as appearing as a regular commentator on St. Louis Public Radio for 25 years. Holocaust Studies and Catholic-Jewish Relations Cargas was introduced to the subject of the Holocaust when he read an excerpt from Elie Wiesel's biographical work Night in a magazine. For the rest of his life after that initial intellectual encounter, much of his scholarly work revolved around the Holocaust and the relations between Jews and Catholics. His mission was to bring "historic truth to his Church" and to provoke Catholic leadership to acknowledge both its role in allowing the Holocaust to happen, as well as its inaction and silence during the war. In particular, he was horrified by the idea that almost "every Jew killed in the Holocaust was murdered by a baptized Christian." In 1979, he developed a list of 16 proposals that would lay the foundation of proper relations between Jews and Christians. These proposals included excommunicating Adolf Hitler, adding Jewish memorials to the Christian liturgical calendar, reexamining Christian theology and history in light of the Holocaust, moving Christian Sabbath to Saturday, and repenting for Christian sins against the Jewish people. Cargas labeled himself a "post-Auschwitz Catholic" and cultivated a deep friendship and intellectual partnership with the writer and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel."In Memoriam: Harry James Cargas" (1999). Holocaust Genocide Studies, 13(1), 166–167. DOI: 10.1093/hgs/13.1.166 The two collaborated on several works, including Conversations with Elie Wiesel, Telling the Tale, Voices from the Holocaust, and A Christian Response to the Holocaust. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Cargas as one of the original members of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, which laid the groundwork for the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. He was also an executive councilman for the U.S. Holocaust Council and the only Catholic ever appointed to the Advisory Committee for Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Last years Shortly before his death in 1998, Cargas showed his continued dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church's response to its role in the Holocaust by rejecting Vatican statements on Jewish-Catholic reconciliation as simply camouflage. Cargas died of a brain hemorrhage while being treated at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. He is buried in Saint Peter Cemetery in Kirkwood, Missouri."Harry James Cargas" (2009). Find a Grave. Retrieved September 22, 2012. Writing In an essay in honor of Cargas after his death, Kurt Vonnegut wrote that Cargas, whom he referred to as "my buddy, Father Cargas," was "a person of historical importance for having taken into his very bones, as a Christian, the horrifying mystery of how persons could profess love of Jesus Christ, as did most Nazis, ... yet commit a crime as merciless as the extermination of Europe's Jews. Every word he writes or speaks is somehow atonement."McGuire, John M. (August 20, 1998). "Harry James Cargas, 66: Author and Holocaust Scholar." St. Louis Post-Dispatch.Vonnegut, Kurt (1998). "Foreword." Peace, In Deed: Essays in Honor of Harry James Cargas. Zev Garber and Richard Libowitz, eds. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Publications Non-fiction *''The Sunflower: On the possibilities and limits of forgiveness''. New York: Schocken, 1969 **revised & expanded, 1976, 1997, 2008. *''Death and Hope''. New York: Corpus Books, 1970. *''Daniel Berrigan and Contemporary Protest Poetry'', New Haven, CT: College & University Press, 1972. *''In Conversation with Elie Wiesel''. New York & Toronto: Paulist Press, 1976. *''Religious Experience and Process Theology: The pastoral implications of a major modern movement'' (with Bernard J. Lee). New York: Paulist Press, 1976. *''A Christian Response to the Holocaust''. Denver, CO: Stonehenge, 1981 **also published as Shadows of Auschwitz: A Christian response to the Holocaust. New York: Crossroad, 1990. *''When God and Man Failed''. New York: Macmillan / London: Collier Macmillan, 1981. *''The Holocaust: An annotated bibliography''. Chicago: American Library Association, 1985. *''Reflections of a Post-Auschwitz Christian.'' Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989. *''Conversations with Elie Wiesel.'' South Bend, IN: Justice Books, 1992. *''Voices from the Holocaust'' (1993) *''The Unnecessary Problem of Edith Stein.'' Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994. *''Holocaust Scholars Write to the Vatican''. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. *''Problems Unique to the Holocaust''. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1999. Edited *''Telling the Tale: A tribute to Elie Wiesel on the occasion of his 65th birthday''. St. Louis, MO: Time Being Books, 1993. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Harry Cargas, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Sep. 3, 2018. See also *List of literary critics References Fonds *Harry James Cargas Papers at Webster University Notes External links ;Audio / video * Harry Cargas interview with Walter J. Ong from the Saint Louis University Libraries' Digital Collections ;Books *Harry J. Cargas at Amazon.com * ;About *Reflections on the life of Harry Cargas by Webster University faculty member Deborah Stiles *Harry Cargas interview with Kurt Vonnegut from The Christian Century. ;Etc. * Announcement of Harry J. Cargas Endowed Scholarship. Category:1932 births Category:1998 deaths Category:American people of Greek descent Category:American people of Polish descent Category:Webster University faculty Category:People from Wayne County, Michigan Category:People from Hamtramck, Michigan Category:People from St. Louis County, Missouri Category:University of Michigan alumni Category:Saint Louis University alumni Category:American military personnel of the Korean War Category:American academics of English literature Category:20th-century American writers Category:American academics Category:American literary critics